Cellular, Immune and Gene Therapy for Cancer

This theme involves the development and clinical trialling of novel therapies for cancer based on two principles

using the specificity of the cellular immune system to recognise and kill tumour cells selectively

using vector-mediated delivery to tumour cells of genes that sensitise the cells to chemotherapeutic pro-drugs.

For both approaches, viruses provide an important entrée. Thus virus-associated cancers are key targets of choice for the development of immune therapies, while other viruses provide the key vectors for tumour-specific gene delivery.

This work complements and extends that described in the Viral Oncology Theme.